


The Forbidden AU

by VinHampton



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-02
Updated: 2014-06-02
Packaged: 2018-02-03 03:59:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1730297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VinHampton/pseuds/VinHampton
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A glimpse into a future possibility.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Forbidden AU

Vivienne knew she was slowly going blind, but the process was slow enough that she had time to adjust. It had started in her forties: objects in the distance had started to blur into vague colours. She began to wear glasses, and did not quite understand why Holmes liked them so much. During the first few weeks, he had made her sit still a few times while he drew this new image of her in his notebook – first in pencil, then in pen and ink. She was fond of his drawings; he always added a spark in her eyes that she couldn’t see when she looked at herself in the mirror. For the first drawing, he sat down right in front of her, so the woman in the portrait looked straight out. He drew her as she was, her nose slightly too wide for her face, her right eye a bit lazy. He was particularly careful drawing the spectacles – he wanted to get them just right. He was obsessed with accuracy. She indulged him, and sat quietly and comfortably, petting their ageing cats and listening to the sound of the pencil scratching her image into the paper. The second time he drew her, he sat at an angle, tracing the contour of her strong cheekbones and spending far too much time on getting the pout of her bottom lip just right. The third time, he sat her in profile and drew the soft flesh under her chin. She didn’t like that, but he assured her she was beautiful. “Your bone structure is beautiful, Vivienne, you are beautiful,” he said, and then kissed her lips and put his pencils away. 

Vivienne smiles at the memory as she stirs the vegetable soup on the stove. She is almost seventy and the glasses are ornamental. She sees peripherally, by tilting her head and looking out of the corner of her eye. Everything else is a mass of abstract shape and colour. It isn’t too bad, and she has had time to learn that everything can still be done, only more slowly. Careful not to scald herself, she spoons some of the hearty soup into a bowl and feels underneath the counter until she finds the drawer handle, pulling it open and taking out a spoon. She takes calculated steps to the kitchen table and sets the bowl down, sitting down with a little bit of effort. “Holmes?” She calls out. He has spent most of his day in the garden, sitting in the mild sun and drawing. She does not hear the sound of his footsteps and calls him again. 

Their house in Sussex is quiet. It is cosy, with two bedrooms, one of which has become their library, and a large garden, which Holmes had used for his beekeeping and gardening for the better part of a decade. Now, it is mostly unkempt, although Vivienne has hired a gardener and a maid who quietly tend to the house while Holmes is out on his visits to John’s house. John and his wife live a few streets away, and once a week, when their grandchildren are not at the house, John comes by and picks up Sherlock and the pair of them sit in John’s living room. John has published a number of books based on his years of detective work with Sherlock, and now, he reads them to him. 

Vivienne misses reading. She listens to audiobooks, but they are not quite the same. When she is alone, she spends time in the library, running her fingers over the spines of her old favourite books. The thick collection of Eliot’s poetry, hefty, a green blur; 1001 Arabian Nights, huge, hardbound, and midnight blue. She doesn’t miss the computer screen quite so much. Sometimes, Holmes reads to her, but he loses interest very quickly. She enjoys it when he does; his voice, though older and more gruff, has retained its velvety timbre and when he is not restless she sits beside him, her head on his shoulder. He still smells exactly the same as he did forty years ago – of wood and tobacco and tea. When he lets her, she lifts her hands to his face and traces it with her fingertips, which remember so much. She cannot see him properly, and she notices that in her mind, he always looks almost forty. She can feel his skin has sagged, but his beautiful lips are still soft and his curls, although they are now completely white, are still quite thick. In her mind, his eyes are still a dazzling shade of blue, and still convey his once boundless intellect. 

Sometimes, he remembers her – usually, it is when he has spent hours poring over his notebooks. Her heart skips a beat when he calls out for her, “Vivienne!”, as though it were the name of precious ore. A little bent, he comes out of the library and she outstretches her arms, feeling around for him. He holds her waist and pulls her close to himself. “My living doll,” he says, warmly. It used to make her cry but now she has learnt to cherish these precious moments, which are becoming more and more rare. Sometimes, his memory lasts an entire day and she does her best to encourage him to remember more. Or they sit in silence, enjoying affectionate caresses and occasional anecdotes, but mostly an unspoken knowledge of the life they shared together, which has been, for the most part, happy. They never did have children, but their lives were rich. Vivienne finally devoted time to studying and, in her forties, got her doctorate in biotechnology. She became a lecturer at a prominent London university, and for twenty years mentored students who went on to achieve remarkable things. They were all her children, in a way. Holmes continued to work until the legwork became too much, and then they retired in this little house in the country. 

There are bad days also. It started slowly, with him forgetting words, forgetting to put his shoes on before he went out. When the doctor diagnosed him with Alzheimer’s, Holmes called him a charlatan and sought a second and third opinion. When he could no longer refute the proof, he spent days locked in the library, refusing to eat or speak to anyone. Eventually, Vivienne found him curled up in a corner, weeping. She bathed him and took him to bed. “We will find a way, we always have.”  
“How? You are going blind, and I am losing the only thing I care about,” he scoffed.   
“You haven’t lost me,” she said, pressing a kiss to the beauty mark on the back of his neck. She couldn’t see it, but knew exactly where it was. 

The episodes have become more frequent. It has been three years since the diagnosis and Vivienne knows they will only get worse. One day soon, she will not be able to cope alone, and she will have to bring in a helper. She has promised herself that the moment he becomes a threat to himself, she will do exactly that. So far, however, it is mostly forgetting. He takes showers with his clothes on. He forgets to put milk back in the fridge, so it goes sour. He hunches over scientific tomes and she can tell from his frustrated silence that he is struggling. She feeds him every day, because he truly forgets now. His face still lights up when she promises muffins. He has not changed all that much. 

They still sleep together every night. Even during the worst moments when he struggles against her and demands to know who she is and what she has done with his Living Doll, she can usually calm him by reaching out and stroking his hair.

The vegetable soup is going cold and Holmes has still not come. Vivienne decides to go to the garden and fetch him, because it is possible if he is having a bad moment that he will be stubborn and refuse to come and eat without being coaxed. She shuffles toward the glass door and can just make out his thin frame, slouching on the bench by the rosebush. “Monster, it’s lunchtime,” she says, walking in his direction. He does not answer her and she frowns, frustrated. She doesn’t like it when he is quiet; it is better when he yells, insults, throws tantrums. When he is quiet, it means he is sad. She sits beside him and strokes his back through his woollen cardigan. “Sit up, my love, and come to the kitchen with me. The food is getting cold.” He does not speak and she reaches for his hands. They are empty. From the corner of her eye, she can see the vague outline of his notebook and pencils on the floor. She picks them up with a sigh and her spine aches dully. “Darling…” She strokes his hair and his head lolls to the side. Of course she understands, but it doesn’t register until she has felt for a pulse and has found none. At first, she experiences a sort of cold feeling. Her skull tingles and she is not sure how to react. And then comes the sadness, all at once, like a wall of water. She places her fingers on his face and feels about frantically. She closes his eyes and his mouth. His lips are still warm, his skin is still warm. She draws his head to her chest and sits, stroking his hair, the soup now completely cold. 

\--

John and his wife accompany her to the funeral, three days later. She learns he died quickly of a heart attack, and blames herself for not being there, for not having realised, for not having been able to save him. She can barely speak his eulogy. Her lips tremble and her words are broken. “Sherlock was brash and arrogant, but he was also brilliant, and kind, and good. And he was the whole world to me,” she manages, before she shakes her head and signals for John to help her off the podium. She is led back to her seat and a Bach fugue plays as Sherlock is lowered into the earth. 

Back at her house, John’s wife makes them all tea and Vivienne sits quietly with her late husband’s oldest friend and wonders how she will ever live without him, how she will ever sleep without him in her bed. On the kitchen table is Sherlock’s notebook, open at the page he was drawing on when he died. “He was drawing flowers all morning,” she says, breaking the silence and running a hand over the paper. She cannot see what is on the page, only knows there is no colour.  
“Flowers?” John says. “He wasn’t drawing flowers, Vin.”  
“No?”  
“He was drawing you. This is your portrait.”  
\--  
Exactly one week after Sherlock’s death, Vivienne drinks a cup of tea and gets into bed. She has asked the maid not to change the sheets; the ghost of his smell is still there and she buries her face in his pillow. She falls asleep eventually and forever.


End file.
